Italian artist Woc explores the NFT space together with Nice Gallery in his latest project Crypto Drawings. A project composed of 100 crypto currencies organically selected, hand-drawn and digitally transformed into Non Fungible Token Artworks.

Through the exploration of the infinite symbolic and aesthetic values that an image acquires in the contemporary era, Woc’s work aims to make eternal an iconography condemned to be lost due to the swiftness of Internet communication. On this occasion through the means of his “Drawings”, Woc’s exploration pursues by creating a series of artworks, that investigate a potential “Material Paradox” behind the value of an “image” today, particularly in the Blockchain era.
The “Material Paradox” for Woc is a creative journey where the artist initially enters a virtual process by instinctively selecting 100 crypto currencies loosely based on their popularity and aesthetic appeal. The venture then shifts back temporarily to a physical dimension as the selected tokens come to life 1 by 1 hand-drawn on paper. Ultimately after a manual scan, the artworks reappear on the virtual domain as a digital asset through the form of an NFT.

As all of Woc’s “Drawings” the artworks are drawn using the same brand of colored pencils the artist used in his early years of life. The imperfect style in which they are illustrated recalls a raw, homely and nostalgic feeling to the time when we first held a pencil in our hand. This memory is the influence behind the “The Original 20”. A set of inaugural 20 drops which, similar to everything that we do as humans in our early years are free from any particular system, pattern or logic and is available exclusively on Rarible. This special limited edition release are a celebration of the birth of this project and will be the only artworks available in varying prices and multiple numbers. The whole Crypto Drawings collection will instead be available on Opensea.

Although the Crypto Drawings project rises as a completely digitally oriented project, the original physical artworks will still be showcased and made available for purchase at a later date with the partner gallery as a reflection by the artist on the physical and absolute representation of value.

Drawings series

Usually accustomed to documenting contemporary iconography through his spray technique, the hand made drawings showcase a more organic and familiar feature of his art. The “Drawings” series by Woc is one of the first series by the artist, where he illustrates imperfect but proficient images using the Fila brand of pencils, a brand which he has been using ever since he started scribbling as a little child. The physical and nostalgic nature of the series however has always had a contemporary and digital outlook as it has always been uniquely showcased on his Instagram profile. The series has always received special attention ever since one of his sketches of Virgil Abloh’s Nike “The Ten” sneaker sparked the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between Virgil Abloh and Woc.